Mallesons Stephen Jaques is a leading law firm in Australia and Asia. It functions as a single partnership, and has associated partnerships and entities, some of which operate outside of Australia. In this policy, the principal partnership, associated partnerships and entities are collectively referred to as “Mallesons”.
This policy describes the way that Mallesons collects, holds and discloses information about individuals. Mallesons is subject to the Privacy Act, including the National Privacy Principles. We may vary this policy from time to time.
Protecting confidential information is fundamental to our relationship with our clients and to our business. All information received in connection with a client matter is subject to strict duties of confidentiality. We will not disclose that information except in accordance with our professional obligations, as authorised by the client or as contemplated by this policy.
Separate guidelines also apply to information held in relation to Mallesons’ own people.
What kinds of information do we hold?
During the course of carrying on our business, we may collect personal information. We usually collect the following kinds of personal information:
- name, address, occupation professional membership and contact information
- interests in areas of legal practice or events
- information about people’s dealings with us or our clients.
If you do not give us any of the personal information which we ask you for, it may affect our ability to meet our obligations to you or our clients.
Use and disclosure of your personal information
We use your personal information for the purposes for which it was collected and related purposes (which are normally obvious when we collect it), including to:
- provide our services to you or our clients, to manage and account for the services, and to improve the services
- manage our relationships with you or our clients
- provide you or our clients with information about legal developments, events or other products or services that may interest you or them
- facilitate our internal business operations, including to fulfil our legal requirements.
We may disclose personal information for the purposes for which it was collected, and also:
- subject to our professional obligations, to any person where necessary or desirable in connection with our provision of legal services, such as to the client, regulatory authorities, or other partners or advisors (whether in Australia or overseas)
- within Mallesons
- on a confidential basis to external service providers so that they can provide financial, administrative or other services in connection with the operation of our business, for example photocopy and archive services providers and financial institutions
- as required by law subject to our professional obligations, as permitted under the National Privacy Principles
- with your consent.
Information security
We take reasonable steps to protect all information which we hold (including your personal information) from misuse, loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
We take reasonable steps to hold information securely in electronic or physical form. We store information in access controlled premises or in electronic databases requiring logins and passwords. All partners and staff with access to confidential information are subject to confidentiality obligations.
Access and correction
You may request access at any time to personal information we hold about you. We may charge you a fee where access is provided. We may refuse to provide access if the National Privacy Principles allow us to do so.